Saw and plane tills

[Daniel Rode]

I'm preparing to build a saw till and a plane till. I have a design in mind for each, but I'd really be interested in seeing what other Neanders are using.

BTW - a picture is worth a thousand words ;)

[Jim Koepke]

One problem with building tills for planes and saws is what happens when a new one shows up?

There are a lot of threads from the past if you want to do a search here on SMC.

Maybe a show your saw & plane storage methods thread would be good.

jtk

[Winton Applegate]

Quick and dirty. Rubber made totes with lids; stacked for the ones I don't use often. These are mostly tools other than planes but some planes.

Rubber made tote with no lid and rubbing alcohol bottles, laundry detergent bottle etc for dividers for the shorter planes I use all the time. Works really well.

Some saws are in the totes with lids, many are on the walls or on lean up portable peg board panels on frames.

I have not spent any time at any of this it is just what has evolved.

And the last photo is Harold Ionson's saw stash. Nice huh ?

[Shawn Pixley]

I am building a saw till right now. It will be an 18"x36" wall cabinet to hold 2 panel saws, 3 back saws, a fret saw, and 3 Japanese pull saws. No plans as I am doing it by feel. My planes have drawers already.

296021

The maple is curly maple I found in a Home Depot. I am cutting the dovetails in the picture. I'll cut the pins in the evenings this week.

296022

It should look a bit like this. Mine will have a door on it to keep the salt air out.

[Daniel Rode]

I've given this a fair bit of thought. My bench, is small and easily cluttered. Having my most used tools at arms reach means putting them away is also at arms reach. Not everything needs to be right at the bench, so I want to be selective in what I choose but also flexible with the storage arrangement. For example, leaving 3" for each plane means I can swap a #4 or a #5 for a #4 1/2 or even a #6.

One problem with building tills for planes and saws is what happens when a new one shows up?

Some more thoughts, I like the idea of angled open storage. After some experiments, I found that 60 degrees is about right. To store a typical #5 and #4 one above the other, I'd want to allocate about 26". At 60 degrees, it projects over 14". So I'm working out some other designs to get the projection down under 10". Probably a double decker with shorter planes on the bottom, longer ones on the top.

The saws are easier. Back saws are all I need at the bench, so the till can be smaller and can incorporate some storage for some additional tools or even overlap space with the plane till.

[Daniel Rode]

A phrase I never expected to read. The Home Depot's by me have, at best, some hugely overpriced red oak and popular. Might have seen a maple board or two but never nice curly maple!

The maple is curly maple I found in a Home Depot.

Since I don't have to deal with the salt air, I'm going for an open design but otherwise you have the same design I like.

[Mike Holbrook]

I just bought the parts to make a Popular Woodworking project called "German Work Box". Searching that name should bring up an article with a free PDF of the project. This is a cabinet on casters that can move many tools anywhere in the shop they may be needed. The double top section folds to either side, making a spacious place to place tools in use. I am modifying the plan to work some larger tools into it.

[Daniel Rode]

While it won't work for what I want to do, there no arguing that it's an ingenious use of the totes and recycled household plastics. Protects the planes nicely, efficient on space and costs nothing.


Quick and dirty. Rubber made totes with lids; stacked for the ones I don't use often. These are mostly tools other than planes but some planes.

Rubber made tote with no lid and rubbing alcohol bottles, laundry detergent bottle etc for dividers for the shorter planes I use all the time. Works really well.

Some saws are in the totes with lids, many are on the walls or on lean up portable peg board panels on frames.

I have not spent any time at any of this it is just what has evolved.

And the last photo is Harold Ionson's saw stash. Nice huh ?

[Shawn Pixley]

A phrase I never expected to read. The Home Depot's by me have, at best, some hugely overpriced red oak and popular. Might have seen a maple board or two but never nice curly maple!
.

I was surprised as well. It doesn't have the most pronounced curl ever, but it was there and sold for about $3.50 a bf. Who am I to walk by decent wood?

[paul cottingham]

My saw tills are both crude, hacked together with scraps, and have some stuff hacked onto them, but work very well. I can post pictures, if they will help. I have nicer plane tills (dovetailed joints!) if pictures would help for that as well. Let me know, but no laughing at them!

[Daniel Rode]

My shop is filled with things made quickly out of scraps. The design is often based on what I can make from leftovers or recycled stuff.

These tills will be slightly nicer but I'm not targeting furniture quality. Economical and functional is the key. This project gets bonus points because it should be interesting to build.

[Sean Hughto]

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2185/2233245819_e9e8773041_o.jpg

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2425/3929860183_e7613406f9_o.jpg

[David Weaver]

296031

I've never been one for fancy shop fixtures, you can see in the background that the whole place is just a block-walled garage, anyway.

This till took me two hours to build, which is in line with my wants. I dovetailed the boards together on the corners and screwed the front and back on. I intended it to have half as many saws in it, so some of the saws are just sitting in there, and some are sitting in slots in the board that runs across the middle. I'd like to get rid of enough saws to have it so that I only have one in each slot and none between.

There are dowels off the sides of the cabinet in four places, each holding two dovetail or tenon saws, and nails in the bottom to hold japanese saws.

Saws don't move on their own and aren't fragile, so there doesn't need to be anything special holding them in, they just sit in the till, and the kerfs that some saws sit in are more for spacing than anything else. I think I may have rasped a small spot in the bottom board where the handles sit so the handles would line up with the slots, but those rasp marks are not deep. It'd look a lot less sloppy if it didn't have so many saws in it.

I don't use a plane till, just a shelf instead that's several feet away from the bench.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Daniel, If you would like the plan for my plane till I can email you a pdf this evening from home if you PM me your email address. If there is interest, I can post the pdf here for anyone to use freely. Again, it would be tonight since I don't have access to it at work.

[Daniel Rode]

PM sent. Thanks!

Daniel, If you would like the plan for my plane till I can email you a pdf this evening from home if you PM me your email address. If there is interest, I can post the pdf here for anyone to use freely. Again, it would be tonight since I don't have access to it at work.

[Daniel Rode]

Sean, everything I've seen in your shop looks as nice as the furniture in my home.

Most of my shop is utilitarian, but I don't enjoy building that stuff as much. I really like the bottom till.

[Sean Hughto]

Shop storage is a good place to practice skills.

[Harold Burrell]

Daniel, If you would like the plan for my plane till I can email you a pdf this evening from home if you PM me your email address. If there is interest, I can post the pdf here for anyone to use freely. Again, it would be tonight since I don't have access to it at work.

Man...I want that! :)

[Jim Koepke]

Man...I want that! :)

Ditto!

Go ahead and post it.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

296031
I intended it to have half as many saws in it, so some of the saws are just sitting in there, and some are sitting in slots in the board that runs across the middle. I'd like to get rid of enough saws to have it so that I only have one in each slot and none between.

I doubt the second statement is really your true goal. In fact, I bet you'd really like to make it over to hold even more saws. LOL

On that topic, how many saws does a guy really need anyway? Is there a minimum complement of saws that you would like to have?

[Sean Hughto]

On that topic, how many saws does a guy really need anyway? Is there a minimum complement of saws that you would like to have?

Probably:
two full size rip saws - a 5 pt and 7 pt
two full size cross cut - an 8 pt and 10 or 12 pt.
one large rip backsaw for large tenons
one smaller sash saw - cross cut
one rip tenon
one dovetail
one flush cut japanese

[Dave Anderson NH]

I cannot upload the plane till plan because the file size of the pdf is too large. PM me with your email address if you would like a copy.

[Stanley Covington]

Here are some pics of my saw till. It can be stored inside my English style toolchest, but mostly it sits on a window sill in my shop. The top space has vertical dividers, and cork on the floor. The bottom drawer fits my small and medium sized Japanese saws, and saw files. I did not invent this style of till. It has been around for a very long time. I refinished it with distressed milkpaint a few years ago.

I have a saw rack (what is commonly called a till nowadays), but I only use it for keeping saws I am using on a particular day from cluttering my bench and getting dulled. I dislike open storage because the saws collect dust which leads to corrosion. I have some very nice saws and want to keep them clean and sharp for a long time.

[Moses Yoder]

Probably:
two full size rip saws - a 5 pt and 7 pt
two full size cross cut - an 8 pt and 10 or 12 pt.
one large rip backsaw for large tenons
one smaller sash saw - cross cut
one rip tenon
one dovetail
one flush cut japanese

I only use one saw for dovetails, a 12" or so 12 point rip with closed handle and would like to have a finer one for small joints and a good gentleman's saw (I guess it is called that) for the occasions when I feel like using one. The rest of your list I agree with :) assuming there is a miter saw with the miter box.

[David Weaver]

I doubt the second statement is really your true goal. In fact, I bet you'd really like to make it over to hold even more saws. LOL

On that topic, how many saws does a guy really need anyway? Is there a minimum complement of saws that you would like to have?

It is my goal, I like saws but I don't love having tons of the same thing. It's nicer when you've got saws to have a couple that are in really good tune rather than tons of saws, some in good tune and some needing resharpening or restoration. My block about selling the saws is that I'd like to not sell the saws to someone unless they're sharpened, because I know most of the people buying saws are beginners. I've got other dilemmas, too, like half of those saws are oddballs (hardware store marks, etc) and the other half are known (disstons, groves, etc). If I sell the hardware store marks, I get rid of a lot of good saws that I think are undervalued by the market, which means it's hardly worth the time to sell them. If I sell the good mark saws, then I don't have them.

Everyone has their quirks, I guess - I think they're a pain to prep and sell (and ship), and if they were all a bunch of duplicates, it would be easier to just sell the duplicates. Sean's list is reasonable. You could put it to half that if you wanted to be a minimalist, maybe even less.

At a minimum, I personally would like to have one very large tooth rip saw (like 3 1/2) for resawing, one in the 5 1/2 range for normal ripping of rough stock, and one in the 8 range if it matters if the back side of the cut is blown out. The rest of the saws, I could do with little, as long as I had a fairly fine crosscut carpenter's saw and two backsaws. Sawing is more about keeping the saws moving and doing so accurately than it is about having a lot of saws. Most of the fascination with how fine or how cleanly a saw cuts ignores the fact that the back sides of most cuts are never viewed, and is more just to please the user.

[bridger berdel]

planes:
296711

the cabinet is a hardware store sample cabinet that I brought home from my grandparent's when the ranch was being cleared out. a vintage cabinet filled with vintage planes. the #2 came from there too.


saws:
296712

296713

296714

296715

the small till is a drawer box from a project I built. the box didn't work for some reason that I forget now and I had to make a new one. I reused this one for backsaws and other smaller saws. one of these days I'll make a door for it. the case for the long saws I made on a whim. it holds 7 saws with dividers separating them. it has a few problems- nothing holds the saws in except gravity, so it has to sit level. it's too long to sit on most kinds of shelving such that a saw can be withdrawn from it without having to keep a saws length of shelf clear for the purpose. it ends up sitting on the top of a largish cabinet, in a not too convenient location. the saws sit teeth down. I don't think that the baltic birch surface is doing any damage to the saws, but the box is getting chewed up. if the box gets tilted toe down the saws slide to the bottom ans jamb down there. if it gets tilted toe up they fall out and land on the horns.

it does serve the purpose of limiting the number of saws that I have in my user rotation, which I consider to be a good thing.

[glenn bradley]

I'm not a true knuckle-dragger and only have a few saws for very specific purposes but, hand tools are indispensable in my gara . . . er, shop. It may be blasphemous to post something like this here but, this is where I stash mine:

296752 . 296751

There is a second swing-door "wing" on the opposite wall as a re-org is required to get the whole rig on one wall and I'm in the middle of a few things :o.

[Shawn Pixley]

Completed my saw till today. I'll put a coat of shellac over the next week and hang it.

296785296784296786296787

Yes everything is square, iPhone close up has a bit of fisheye distortion.

[Stanley Covington]

Nice work, Shawn. I like the ones with doors. Maple? What wood is the panel?

Stan.


Completed my saw till today. I'll put a coat of shellac over the next week and hang it.

296785296784296786296787

Yes everything is square, iPhone close up has a bit of fisheye distortion.

[David Weaver]

Completed my saw till today. I'll put a coat of shellac over the next week and hang it.

296785296784296786296787

Yes everything is square, iPhone close up has a bit of fisheye distortion.

Nice! .

[allen long]

Sean,

Those are both beauties! Are they both yours and how do I get the plans!?!?

[Shawn Pixley]

Thanks! Sides and door rails/stiles are maple from Home depot. It has a bit of curl to it. Top and bottome are Kiaat. Panel is black maple.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I wish my HD had maple!

[Sean Hughto]

Sean,

Those are both beauties! Are they both yours and how do I get the plans!?!?

Both mine. The big one is roughly based on a plan from the old Galoots forum, I think. I made it like 18 years ago when I was just getting more seriously into woodworking.

The little one is just something I threw together from scraps cause I needed a place for my growing herd of backsaws. PM me if you want any measurements or others pictures. Glad to help.